What is it about?
This paper is about the impact of sexual violence. It finds that 17% of men and 46% of women in the United States experience sexual violence. And in analyzing interviews with a random sample of the American population, it finds that survivors of sexual violence speak with more anger, disgust, fear, and sadness, and less anticipation, joy, & trust when discussing their lives in general.
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Why is it important?
The most important part of this finding is that we can see that people talk about their lives in much more negative ways before they're ever even asked about sexual violence experiences. An experience of sexual violence has a greater impact than the death of a parent on how negatively people describe their lives. Sexual violence has a huge impact on people's lives. But curiously, we almost never ask about it in our surveys or interviews. This could mean that a significant cause of negative outcomes in people's lives is unmeasured.
Perspectives
On a personal level this result isn't surprising, but it is deeply troubling. Women, people with disabilities, people who have trouble paying for their basic needs, and the LGBTQ+ population are more likely to experience assault. By implication, these populations are likely to experience and describe their lives in significantly more negative ways. We need to understand this better as scholars, and as communities, do more to prevent sexual violence.
Shamus Khan
Princeton University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Sexual assault and the matrix of harm: Sexual assault survivors narrate their whole lives in more negative ways, PLoS ONE, June 2024, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297650.
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